Debrief mode for capturing information relevant to meetings processed by a virtual meeting assistant

ABSTRACT

In one embodiment, the interactive virtual meeting assistant implements a meeting debrief post-processing operation. For a given meeting that the interactive virtual meeting assistant participated in, a meeting post-processing engine enables one or more participants of the meeting to associate a debrief with the meeting. The debrief may be an audio recording, a video recording, text, or any file. The meeting post-processing engine stores the debrief in data stores and provides access to the debrief via the meeting GUI associated with the meeting. The meeting post-processing engine also processes the debrief to generate tasks to be assigned to participants or other entities and/or schedule reminders to be provided to the participants or other entities. The debrief may be private, such that only the participant who provided the debrief may subsequently access the debrief.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Field of the Invention

Embodiments of the present invention relate generally to interactivevirtual assistants, and more specifically, to a debrief mode forcapturing information relevant to a meeting processed by a virtualassistant meeting.

Description of the Related Art

Interactive virtual assistants are becoming more commonplace to providean easy way for a user to accomplish the user's goals via a computer. Inconventional approaches, interactive virtual assistants may receive avoice input from the human user, parse the words spoken by the user, andcause an action requested by the user to be performed. For instance, theuser may request ordering a particular item from a shopping website ormaking a phone call to a person whose contact information is stored in acontact database, and, in response, the interactive virtual assistantcauses a computer to order the requested item or causes a telephone tomake the requested call.

However, conventional approaches have not effectively integratedinteractive virtual assistants into a meeting environment. There areseveral technical challenges when integrating interactive virtualassistants into a meeting environment. For example, there are a varietyof disparate platforms and services for conducting meetings. Becausesuch platforms and services do not typically follow a standard, creatingan interactive virtual assistant that is able integrate with thedisparate platforms and services is technically challenging. Further,given that a meeting typically has at least two vocally activeparticipants, providing a useful and complete set of features to themeeting participants requires sophisticated natural language and audioprocessing operations.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

So that the manner in which the above recited features of the presentinvention can be understood in detail, a more particular description ofthe invention, briefly summarized above, may be had by reference toembodiments, some of which are illustrated in the appended drawings. Itis to be noted, however, that the appended drawings illustrate onlytypical embodiments of this invention and are therefore not to beconsidered limiting of its scope, for the invention may admit to otherequally effective embodiments.

FIG. 1 illustrates a system configured to implement one or more aspectsof the present invention.

FIG. 2 illustrates a more detailed illustration of the interactivevirtual meeting assistant of FIG. 1, according to various embodiments ofthe present invention.

FIG. 3 is a timing diagram illustrating actions performed by theinteractive virtual meeting assistant to integrate the interactivevirtual meeting assistant into a meeting environment, according tovarious embodiments of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram illustrating a method for associating a debriefwith a meeting processed by the interactive virtual meeting assistant,according to various embodiments of the present invention.

FIG. 5 illustrates an example of a request transmitted by theinteractive virtual meeting assistant for providing the debrief,according to various embodiments of the present invention.

FIG. 6 illustrates an example of a meeting GUI that includes a debriefview provided to the meeting participant, according to variousembodiments of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following description, numerous specific details are set forth toprovide a more thorough understanding of the present invention. However,it will be apparent to one of skill in the art that the presentinvention may be practiced without one or more of these specificdetails.

System Overview

FIG. 1 illustrates a system 100 configured to implement one or moreaspects of the present invention. As shown, system 100 includes, withoutlimitation, a computing device 110 coupled via dial-in infrastructurenetworks 140 to multiple meeting participants 150(0) to 150(m).

As shown, the computing device 110 includes, without limitation, aprocessor 120, input/output (I/O) devices 125, and a memory 130.Processor 120 may be any technically feasible form of processing deviceconfigured to process data and execute program code. Processor 120 couldbe, for example, a central processing unit (CPU), a graphics processingunit (GPU), an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), afield-programmable gate array (FPGA), and so forth. I/O devices 125 mayinclude devices configured to receive input or provide output,including, for example, a keyboard, a mouse, a display, and so forth.

Memory 130 may be any technically feasible storage medium configured tostore data and software applications. Memory 130 may be, for example, ahard disk, a random-access memory (RAM) module, a read-only memory(ROM), and so forth. As also shown, the memory 130 includes, withoutlimitation, an interactive virtual meeting assistant 132, which is asoftware application that, when executed by the processor 120, causesprocessor 120 to execute an interactive virtual meeting assistantapplication. The interactive virtual meeting assistant 132 may includeany technically feasible type of virtual meeting assistant, such as theEva™ application from Voicera, Inc.

Dial-in infrastructure networks 140 may be any technically feasiblenetwork or set of interconnected communication links that enable theinteractive virtual meeting assistant 132, executed by processor 120, toparticipate in a meeting with one or more meeting participants 150(0) to150(m). As shown, the dial-in infrastructure may include, withoutlimitation, one or more telephone line connections or one or morecomputer connections, such as a local area network (LAN), wide areanetwork (WAN), the World Wide Web, or the Internet, among others. Thedial-in infrastructure networks 140 may also enable the interactivevirtual meeting assistant 132 to access other information via thenetworks, such as by accessing information via the World Wide Web, orthe Internet, among others.

Meeting participants 150(0) to 150(m) represent one or more human and/orcomputer participants in a meeting environment. Each of the one or moremeeting participants 150(0) to 150(m) may be connected to other meetingparticipants and the interactive virtual meeting assistant 132, asexecuted by processor 120, via any technically feasible device thatforms a connection to other meeting participants, such as a telephone,smartphone, computing device, or personal data assistant, among others.The connections linking the meeting participants 150(0) to 150(m) may beany technically feasible communication link(s), including, withoutlimitation, communication links included in the dial-in infrastructurenetworks 140, and/or one or more other external communication links,including, without limitation, one or more telephone line connections orone or more computer connections, such as a local area network (LAN),wide area network (WAN), the World Wide Web, or the Internet, amongothers.

Although FIG. 1 shows the interactive virtual meeting assistant 132stored in the memory 130 of the computing device 110, in alternativeembodiments, the interactive virtual meeting assistant 132 may be storedin-part or entirely in the memory 130 and/or any technically feasiblememory device internal to or external to the computing device 110,including any memory device coupled to the computing device 110 througha wired connection, a wireless connection, a network connection, and soforth.

As described in greater detail below in conjunction with FIGS. 2-6, theinteractive virtual meeting assistant 132 receives an invitation toparticipate in a meeting environment, parses text information includedin or derived from the invitation to determine meeting informationnecessary for the interactive virtual meeting assistant 132 to join themeeting, and either joins the meeting based on the meeting informationdetermined from parsing the received text information, or returns anerror message indicating that the meeting information could not becorrectly determined from parsing the received text information. Whenthe meeting concludes, the interactive virtual meeting assistant 132performs one or more post-processing operations to generate metrics,tasks, trigger notifications, etc. associated with the meeting.

Interactive Virtual Meeting Assistant

FIG. 2 illustrates interactive virtual meeting assistant 200, which is amore detailed illustration of the interactive virtual meeting assistant132 of FIG. 1, according to various embodiments of the presentinvention. As shown, interactive virtual meeting assistant 200 includes,without limitation, a data receiving engine 210, a communications engine220, a scheduling engine 230, data stores 260, an in-meeting engine 270,and a meeting post-processing engine 280.

Data receiving engine 210 may receive data from a user requesting tointegrate the interactive virtual meeting assistant 200 into a meetingenvironment. Types of data received from the user via the data receivingengine 210 may include, without limitation, a telephone call or othervoice information received from the user, text or other data receivedfrom the user via a website associated with the interactive virtualmeeting assistant 200, text or other data received from the user via anapplication associated with the interactive virtual meeting assistant200, or an email, calendar invite, or other message containing textinformation received from the user, among others.

For voice data received via a telephone connection or other voiceconnection, the data receiving engine 210 may convert the received voicedata into text via a voice-recognition mechanism (not shown) forconverting voice to text information. Such voice recognition mechanismswould be well-understood by persons of skill in the art and are notdescribed in further detail herein. In various embodiments, for datareceived via the data receiving engine 210 that incudes text informationor is converted into text information, such as voice data converted intotext via a voice-recognition mechanism, the text information may includetext that is formatted according to a predetermined format, or the textinformation may include text that is free-form, as written by the user,and does not follow any predetermined format.

Communications engine 220 may perform actions to connect the interactivevirtual meeting assistant 200 to the meeting environment via the dial-ininfrastructure networks 140, based on the data received from the uservia the data receiving engine 210. In various embodiments, data may bereceived via the data receiving engine 210 to cause the communicationsengine 220 to integrate the interactive virtual meeting assistant 200into a meeting environment immediately. In other embodiments, data maybe received via the data receiving engine 210 to cause thecommunications engine 220 to integrate the interactive virtual meetingassistant 200 into a meeting environment at a later time.

In various embodiments, data received via the data receiving engine 210seeking to integrate the interactive virtual meeting assistant 200 intoa meeting immediately may include data received via a voice connection,via a website connection, or via another form of application, amongothers. In such circumstances, where the interactive virtual meetingassistant 200 is to be integrated into the meeting environmentimmediately, the interactive meeting assistant 200 may be integratedinto the meeting environment using the data received via the datareceiving engine 210, without retrieving any additional informationabout the meeting. For instance, the communications engine 220 may forma connection to integrate the interactive meeting assistant 200 into themeeting environment immediately in response to data associated with theuser pushing one or more buttons on a telephone via a telephoneconnection. In other embodiments, the communications engine 220 may forma connection to integrate the interactive meeting assistant 200 into themeeting environment immediately in response to receiving data via a dataconnection, such as via a website or via an application, where thereceived data causes a connection to the meeting environment to beactivated.

In other embodiments, data may be received via the data receiving engine210 seeking to invite the interactive virtual meeting assistant 200 toconnect to a meeting at a later time. For instance, the data receivingengine 210 may receive an email via an email inbox, where the datareceiving engine 210 may include an email server or may access anexternal email server to access received emails. In other embodiments,the data receiving engine 210 may receive a message, such as a calendarinvitation, via a calendar application. In various embodiments, thereceived emails or messages may include information about how to connectto the meeting in a body of a message, as an attachment to the message,and so forth. In various embodiments, the data receiving engine 210 mayreceive a message or other data signal via any kind of application ordata connection. The received data, including an email, message,attachment, or other data signal, may include text information in anykind of electronic format, such as hypertext markup language (HTML),plaintext, or any other kind of data that represents text in electronicform, among others.

In such circumstances, where the interactive virtual meeting assistant200 is to be integrated into the meeting environment at a later time,the scheduling engine 230 may parse the received data to determineinformation about the meeting, such as the scheduled time and date ofthe meeting, the location of the meeting, a description of the meeting,a title or summary of the meeting, an inviter or organizer of themeeting, and so forth. Determining the scheduled time and location ofthe meeting enables the communications engine 220 to connect theinteractive virtual meeting assistant 200 to the meeting environment atthe scheduled time and location.

In particular, the scheduling engine 230 may receive the textinformation from the data receiving engine 210 and perform one or morepre-processing operations so that the text information is normalized andformatted according to a standardized format that can be recognized bythe text parsing mechanisms included in the scheduling engine 230. Thescheduling engine 230 may parse the received pre-processed textinformation to determine information about the meeting. The informationabout the meeting includes, but is not limited to, a summary or title ofthe meeting, an inviter or organizer of the meeting, and how theinteractive virtual meeting assistant 200 may join the meeting.Information enabling the interactive virtual meeting assistant 200 tojoin the meeting environment includes any passcodes, passwords, ormeeting identification codes, and so forth. In addition, the informationmay include network or telephone service information to be used toconnect the interactive virtual meeting assistant 200 to the meeting.For instance, a particular network or telephone service may usespecified network protocols or a specified type of telephone connection,and the interactive virtual meeting assistant 200 will use thisspecified service information to be able to connect to the meeting.

In one embodiment, the scheduling engine 230 also determines informationrelated to a description of the meeting. For instance, the informationrelated to the description of the meeting may be any technicallyfeasible type of information describing the meeting, such as, withoutlimitation, the expected duration of the meeting, the expected number ofparticipants in the meeting, whether there will be any breaks in themeeting, whether any refreshments will be provided at the meeting, orany materials to be presented or discussed in the meeting, and so forth.

In one embodiment, the received text information may be received in theform of an email message, where the email message includes a file as anattachment that complies with a particular meeting information format orprotocol. In such circumstances, the owner of the meeting may bedetermined from the attached file. For such an attachment, the attachedfile may include, without limitation an “organizer” field indicating theorganizer or owner of the meeting, and a “sent by” field indicating theparty that sent the invitation to the meeting. The scheduling engine 230may determine that the owner of the meeting is the party identified inthe “organizer” field. If the attached file does not include an“organizer” field, the scheduling engine 230 may determine that theowner of the meeting is the party identified in the “sent by” field.Accordingly, the “organizer” and “sent by” fields may be parsed inpriority order, giving a higher priority to the “organizer” field. Forinstance, the owner of the meeting may be identified in the “organizer”field, whereas a third party, such as an administrator or an assistantto the owner of the meeting, may be the party that actually sends theemail with the attached file.

In other embodiments, as would be well-understood to persons skilled inthe art, for cases where there is no file attached to the email orinsufficient information included in the attached file, the email itselfmay include one or more fields relating to the party that sent the emailmessage. For instance, the email message may include, withoutlimitation, a “reply-to” field, a “sender” field, and a “from” field,among others. Similar to the case of the “organizer” and “sent by”fields within the attached file, the “reply-to,” “sender,” and “from”fields may be parsed in priority order, giving top priority to the“reply-to” field, next priority to the “sender” field, and lowerpriority to the “from” field. For instance, the “reply-to” fieldindicates where replies to the email are directed, which is likely to bethe owner of the meeting. By contrast, the “sender” or “from” fields mayindicate the account from which the email was sent, which is notnecessarily the account of the owner of the meeting. For instance, the“sender” or “from” fields may indicate the account of an emailadministrator or an assistant to the owner of the meeting. Accordingly,the scheduling engine 230 may cause the received text information to beparsed to identify the owner of the meeting.

Once the scheduling engine 230 determines the information related to themeeting, the scheduling engine 230 stores the information (also referredto herein as the “meeting parameters”) in the data stores 260. When themeeting time approaches, the scheduling engine 230 connects the meetingassistant 200 to the meeting via the connection information included inthe meeting parameters.

The in-meeting engine 270 operates as a background process when themeeting assistant 200 connects to a meeting through the dial-ininfrastructure 140. The in-meeting engine 270 actively performs naturallanguage processing operation on audio data captured from the meeting toidentify and act on commands spoken by one or more meeting participants150 directing the meeting assistant to perform tasks related to themeeting. Such commands include taking notes, performing actions internalor external to the meeting, associating a particular point in time ofthe meeting with an action to be taken during a meeting post-processingstep. The in-meeting engine 270 may also independently identify pointsin time during the meeting where the assistant 200 performs an actioneven though an explicit command has not been provided by a meetingparticipant 150. Such actions include memorializing when meetingparticipants join/leave a meeting, terminating the connection to themeeting upon determining that the meeting has ended, and determiningthat a quality of the connection to the meeting has fallen below athreshold and performing one or more remedial operations.

In various embodiments, the interactive virtual meeting assistant 200may store information in data stores 260. As shown, data stores 260include, without limitation, meeting parameters 262, meeting metadata264, and meeting recordings 266. In various embodiments, meetingparameters 262 may store the multiple different fields of meetinginformation, i.e., the meeting parameters, that enable the interactivevirtual meeting assistant 200 to join the meeting environment. Invarious embodiments, meeting metadata 264 stores information generatedduring the meeting, as described in herein. In some embodiments, meetingrecordings 266 stores audio and other recordings of the actual meetingenvironment generated during the meeting, as described in detail herein.In addition, the data stores 260 may include any technically feasibleother data stores for storing additional information that is generatedby or would be useful for the interactive virtual meeting assistant 200.In some embodiments, the data stored in the data store 260 may be storedas part of the interactive virtual meeting assistant 200, or anywhereelse in memory 120, or any technically feasible memory, such as anexternal memory connected to the computer 100 or remotely-accessible bythe computer 100.

The meeting post-processing engine 280 performs one or morepost-processing operations subsequent to the meeting assistant 200having participated in the meeting. Post-processing operations includeidentifying any commands received by the meeting assistant 200 duringthe meeting that need to be acted upon. These commands includetransmitting notifications to meeting participants and/or other entitieswithin an organization, setting up follow-up meetings, creating andtransmitting tasks to meeting participants and/or other entities.Post-processing operations also include processing the audio of themeeting recording to generate metrics, tasks, meeting summaries, meetingnotes, highlights, etc.

In one embodiment, the meeting post-processing engine 280 generates ameeting graphical user interface (GUI) associated with a meeting inwhich the meeting assistant 200 participated. The meeting GUI isavailable for viewing and manipulation by one or more meetingparticipants 150 and/or other entities. The meeting GUI includes, but isnot limited to, a mechanism to playback the meeting recording associatedwith the meeting, a list of follow-up tasks generated for the meeting,and/or any information generated by the post-processing operations.

FIG. 3 is a timing diagram illustrating actions performed by theinteractive virtual meeting assistant 200 to integrate the interactivevirtual meeting assistant into a meeting environment, according tovarious embodiments of the present invention. Although the actionsperformed are described in conjunction with FIGS. 1 and 2, personsskilled in the art will understand that any system configured to performthe method steps, in any order, falls within the scope of the presentinvention.

As shown, a timing diagram 300 begins at step 302, where the interactivevirtual meeting assistant 200 receives from one of the meetingparticipants 150(0) to 150(m) an invitation to cause the interactivevirtual meeting assistant 200 to be integrated into the meetingenvironment. As described herein, the interactive virtual meetingassistant 200 may include a data receiving engine 210 for receiving datain the form of the invitation requesting to integrate the interactivevirtual meeting assistant 200 into the meeting environment. As describedherein, the invitation may include data that includes text informationor includes information from which text information may be derived,including, without limitation, data in the form of a telephone call orother voice information received from the user, text or other datareceived from the user via a website associated with the interactivevirtual meeting assistant 200, text or other data received from the uservia an application associated with the interactive virtual meetingassistant 200, or an email or other message containing text informationreceived from the user, among others.

At step 304, the interactive virtual meeting assistant 200 parses thedata included in the received invitation to determine one or moremeeting parameters associated with the meeting that enable theinteractive virtual meeting assistant 200 to join the meeting. Invarious embodiments, as described herein, the interactive virtualmeeting assistant 200 may include a scheduling engine 230 for parsingthe text information included in or derived from the receivedinformation to generate the one or more meeting parameters.

At step 306, the interactive virtual meeting assistant 200 causes theparsed meeting parameters to be stored in data stores 260. At step 308,the interactive virtual meeting assistant 200 joins the meetingenvironment based on the stored meeting parameters. In variousembodiments, the communications engine 220 may cause the interactivevirtual meeting assistant 200 to join the meeting using the storedmeeting parameters. For instance, the communications engine 220 may usestored telephone number information to cause the interactive virtualmeeting assistant 200 to join a meeting by telephone, or use storedwebsite information to cause the interactive virtual meeting assistant200 to join a meeting via a website.

At step 310, during the meeting, the interactive virtual meetingassistant 200 detects and processes natural language commands given bythe meeting participants 150(0) to 150(m). In various embodiments, theinteractive virtual meeting assistant 200 may process commands spoken bythe meeting participants 150(0) to 150(m) to cause the interactivevirtual meeting assistant 200 to perform some meeting-related action.For instance, the meeting participant may speak details of a command tocause the interactive virtual meeting assistant 200 to perform a meetingrelated action, such as making a note, memorializing an action item, andso forth.

At step 312, the interactive virtual meeting assistant 200 storesmeeting metadata resulting from the natural language commands generatedduring the meeting in the data stores 260. In various embodiments, theinteractive virtual meeting assistant 200 may record meeting metadataresulting from these commands by the meeting participants 150(0) to150(m) into the meeting metadata data stores 264. For instance, themeeting metadata may include the notes or action items generated duringthe meeting, such as an action item to send a particular email, togenerate a reminder about a deadline, and so forth.

At step 314, the interactive virtual meeting assistant 200 causes themeeting to be recorded. In various embodiments, the interactive virtualmeeting assistant 200 may cause an audio and/or video recording of ameeting to be recorded. In some embodiments, the audio and/or videorecording may be stored in the meeting recordings data stores 266. Atstep 316, the interactive virtual meeting assistant 200 causes themeeting recording to be stored in the meeting recordings data stores266.

At step 318, the interactive virtual meeting assistant 200 causes one ormore post-processing actions to be performed based on the stored meetingmetadata and/or the stored meeting recordings. In various embodiments,the interactive virtual meeting assistant 200 may include a meetingpost-processing engine 280 that performs these meeting post-processingfunctions on meeting metadata stored in the meeting metadata stores 264,such as by sending an email or a reminder as specified in a note oraction item generated during the meeting, and so forth. In addition, invarious embodiments, the meeting post-processing engine 280 may performdata analysis or other post-processing operations on audio or videomeeting recordings that are stored in meeting recordings data stores266.

Meeting Debrief Post-Processing Operation

In one embodiment, the meeting post-processing engine 280 implements ameeting debrief operation. In particular, for a given meeting that theinteractive virtual meeting assistant 200 participated in or isscheduled to participate in, the meeting post-processing engine 280enables one or more participants 150 of the meeting to associate adebrief with the meeting. The debrief may be an audio recording, a videorecording, text, or any file. The meeting post-processing engine 280stores the debrief in the data stores 260 and provides access to thedebrief via the meeting GUI associated with the meeting. The debrief maybe private, such that only the participant 150 who provided the debriefmay subsequently access the debrief. Alternatively, in some embodiments,the debrief may be public or partially public, such that anotherparticipant 150 or entity different from the participant 150 whoprovided the debrief may subsequently access the debrief.

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram illustrating a method for associating a debriefwith a meeting processed by the interactive virtual meeting assistant200, according to various embodiments of the present invention. Althoughthe actions performed are described in conjunction with FIGS. 1 and 2,persons skilled in the art will understand that any system configured toperform the method steps, in any order, falls within the scope of thepresent invention.

The method 400 begins at step 402, where the interactive virtual meetingassistant 200 determines that, for a given meeting processed by theinteractive virtual meeting assistant 200, a debrief setting associatedwith a meeting participant 150 has been activated. The debrief settingis stored in the data stores 260 in a user profile associated with themeeting participant 150. In one embodiment, the debrief setting is aglobal setting such that the setting applies to every meeting in whichthe meeting participant 150 is a participant. In another embodiment, thedebrief setting is a meeting-specific setting such that the settingapplies to only one meeting in which the meeting participant 150 is aparticipant. In yet another embodiment, the debrief setting is specificto particular type of meeting (e.g., team meeting, external meeting,all-hands meeting, etc.) such that the setting applies to only meetingsof the particular type in which the meeting participant 150 is aparticipant.

At step 404, the interactive virtual meeting assistant 200 determines acontact mechanism for contacting the meeting participant 150 to requestthe debrief for the meeting. The contact mechanism may be a telephonenumber, an email address, a social media handle, a messaging serviceidentifier, or any other technically feasible mechanism for contactingthe meeting participant 150. In one embodiment, the contact mechanismmay be stored in the data stores 260 in a user profile associated withthe meeting participant 150. In one embodiment, the user initiates thecommunication with the virtual meeting assistant 200 to provide thedebrief for the meeting without being expressly requested for providingthe debrief.

At step 406, the interactive virtual meeting assistant 200electronically transmits a request to the meeting participant 150 viathe contact mechanism for providing the debrief of the meeting. In oneembodiment, the request includes a uniform resource locator (URL) orother type of link to an application that enables the meetingparticipant 150 to record or otherwise provide the debrief.

At step 408, the interactive virtual meeting assistant 200 receives thedebrief from the meeting participant 150 in response to the request. Atstep 410, the interactive virtual meeting assistant 200 generates aprivate association between the meeting and the debrief. The privateassociation indicates that only the meeting participant 150 maysubsequently access the debrief. In one embodiment, the interactivevirtual meeting assistant 200 stores the debrief in the data stores 260in conjunction with the meeting. The debrief may be associated withvarious metadata of the meeting including, without limitation, the nameand email address of meeting participants, the title of the meeting, theagenda of the meeting, the audio recording of the meeting, and/or anypublic or private notes associated with the meeting.

At step 412, the interactive virtual meeting assistant 200 generates aGUI associated with the meeting for presentation to the meetingparticipant 150 that includes the debrief. Further, the interactive theinteractive virtual meeting assistant 200 may provide (either through arequest from or a push to) the debrief to external systems. Theseexternal systems may be collaboration tools, information managementsystems, customer relationship management (CRM) systems, etc. Thedebrief provided to such external systems may be provided in a formatthat enables users of those systems to perform actions, such as view,interact with, share, and/or store, in association with the debrief.

In one embodiment, the interactive virtual meeting assistant 200generates a transcription of the debrief and includes the transcriptionin the GUI associated with the meeting. In addition, the interactivevirtual meeting assistant 200 evaluates the content of the debrief toperform one or more post-processing operations. These includeidentifying any commands received by the meeting assistant 200 duringthe meeting that need to be acted upon. The commands may includetransmitting notifications to meeting participants and/or other entitieswithin an organization, setting up follow-up meetings, creating andtransmitting tasks to meeting participants and/or other entities.

FIG. 5 illustrates an example of a request transmitted by theinteractive virtual meeting assistant 200 for providing the debrief,according to various embodiments of the present invention. As shown, themeeting participant 150 receives a text message that includes a link 502to an application that enables the meeting participant 150 to record orotherwise provide the debrief. In one embodiment, the text message istransmitted to the meeting participant 150 via a short message servicebased on a telephone number associated with the meeting participant.

FIG. 6 illustrates an example of a meeting GUI 600 that includes adebrief view 602 provided to the meeting participant 150, according tovarious embodiments of the present invention. As shown, the debrief view602 includes a transcription of a debrief provided by the meetingparticipant 150. The debrief view 602 also enables a user of the meetingGUI 600 to replay the debrief if the debrief is an audio or a videorecording.

Advantageously, the debrief post-processing operation is automaticallytriggered subsequent to a meeting concluding. Consequently, the debriefpost-processing operation enables a meeting participant 150 to providepersonal follow-ups or record reactions close in time to the meetingconcluding even if the meeting participant 150 is on the go. Further,privately associating a debrief with a meeting allows for the debrief toonly be accessed by the meeting participant 150 should the meetingparticipant want to keep the debrief private. In such a manner, ameeting GUI generated for a meeting includes both information availableto all the participants of the meeting and information (such as thedebrief) available to only the participant that provided the informationor indicated that such information be kept private.

The descriptions of the various embodiments have been presented forpurposes of illustration, but are not intended to be exhaustive orlimited to the embodiments disclosed. Many modifications and variationswill be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art without departingfrom the scope and spirit of the described embodiments.

Aspects of the present embodiments may be embodied as a system, methodor computer program product. Accordingly, aspects of the presentdisclosure may take the form of an entirely hardware embodiment, anentirely software embodiment (including firmware, resident software,micro-code, etc.) or an embodiment combining software and hardwareaspects that may all generally be referred to herein as a “module” or“system.” Furthermore, aspects of the present disclosure may take theform of a computer program product embodied in one or more computerreadable medium(s) having computer readable program code embodiedthereon.

Any combination of one or more computer readable medium(s) may beutilized. The computer readable medium may be a computer readable signalmedium or a computer readable storage medium. A computer readablestorage medium may be, for example, but not limited to, an electronic,magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system,apparatus, or device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing. Morespecific examples (a non-exhaustive list) of the computer readablestorage medium would include the following: an electrical connectionhaving one or more wires, a portable computer diskette, a hard disk, arandom access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasableprogrammable read-only memory (EPROM or Flash memory), an optical fiber,a portable compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), an optical storagedevice, a magnetic storage device, or any suitable combination of theforegoing. In the context of this document, a computer readable storagemedium may be any tangible medium that can contain, or store a programfor use by or in connection with an instruction execution system,apparatus, or device.

Aspects of the present disclosure are described above with reference toflowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus(systems) and computer program products according to embodiments of thedisclosure. It will be understood that each block of the flowchartillustrations and/or block diagrams, and combinations of blocks in theflowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, can be implemented bycomputer program instructions. These computer program instructions maybe provided to a processor of a general purpose computer, specialpurpose computer, or other programmable data processing apparatus toproduce a machine, such that the instructions, which execute via theprocessor of the computer or other programmable data processingapparatus, enable the implementation of the functions/acts specified inthe flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks. Such processors maybe, without limitation, general purpose processors, special-purposeprocessors, application-specific processors, or field-programmableprocessors.

The flowchart and block diagrams in the Figures illustrate thearchitecture, functionality, and operation of possible implementationsof systems, methods and computer program products according to variousembodiments of the present disclosure. In this regard, each block in theflowchart or block diagrams may represent a module, segment, or portionof code, which comprises one or more executable instructions forimplementing the specified logical function(s). It should also be notedthat, in some alternative implementations, the functions noted in theblock may occur out of the order noted in the figures. For example, twoblocks shown in succession may, in fact, be executed substantiallyconcurrently, or the blocks may sometimes be executed in the reverseorder, depending upon the functionality involved. It will also be notedthat each block of the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, andcombinations of blocks in the block diagrams and/or flowchartillustration, can be implemented by special purpose hardware-basedsystems that perform the specified functions or acts, or combinations ofspecial purpose hardware and computer instructions.

The invention has been described above with reference to specificembodiments. Persons of ordinary skill in the art, however, willunderstand that various modifications and changes may be made theretowithout departing from the broader spirit and scope of the invention asset forth in the appended claims. The foregoing description and drawingsare, accordingly, to be regarded in an illustrative rather than arestrictive sense.

While the preceding is directed to embodiments of the presentdisclosure, other and further embodiments of the disclosure may bedevised without departing from the basic scope thereof, and the scopethereof is determined by the claims that follow.

1. A method, comprising: electronically connecting to a meeting platformbased on a plurality of meeting parameters parsed from a meeting inviteassociated with a meeting having a plurality of participants;determining that a debrief is to be provided in association with themeeting; and for a first of the plurality of participants, determiningthat a debrief setting associated with the first participant isactivated and applicable to the meeting; electronically transmitting arequest to the first participant for providing a debrief associated withthe meeting; in response to the request, receiving the debriefassociated with the meeting; associating the debrief with metadatacaptured for the meeting, wherein access to the debrief is configurableby only the first participant.
 2. The method of claim 1, whereindetermining that determining that the debrief is to be provided inassociation with the meeting is based on the plurality of meetingparameters.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein determining that thedebrief is to be provided in association with the meeting is based ondetermining from participating in the meeting via the meeting platformthat the meeting has concluded.
 4. The method of claim 1, whereindetermining that the debrief setting is activated and applicable to themeeting comprises accessing the device setting from a user profileassociated with the first participant and stored in a data store.
 5. Themethod of claim 1, wherein the debrief setting is activated for ameeting type associated with the meeting.
 6. The method of claim 1,wherein electronically transmitting the request comprises transmittingthe request to the first participant via a text-based message over atelecommunications network.
 7. The method of claim 1, wherein therequest comprises a link for accessing an application through which thedebrief is recorded.
 8. The method of claim 1, wherein the debrief is arecorded audio and/or video message provided by the first participant.9. The method of claim 1, wherein the debrief is a text message providedby the first participant.
 10. The method of claim 1, further comprisingtranscribing the debrief for presentation to the first participant. 11.The method of claim 1, further comprising evaluating content of thedebrief to generate a task in association with the meeting.
 12. Themethod of claim 1, further comprising presenting the debrief in aconjunction with a debrief view of a meeting graphical user interfaceassociated with the meeting.
 13. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising transmitting the debrief to an external system forpresentation to a user within an interface managed by the externalsystem.
 14. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprisinginstructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor toperform the steps of: electronically connecting to a meeting platformbased on a plurality of meeting parameters parsed from a meeting inviteassociated with a meeting having a plurality of participants;determining that a debrief is to be provided in association with themeeting; and for a first of the plurality of participants, determiningthat a debrief setting associated with the first participant isactivated and applicable to the meeting; electronically transmitting arequest to the first participant for providing a debrief associated withthe meeting; in response to the request, receiving the debriefassociated with the meeting; associating the debrief with metadatacaptured for the meeting, wherein access to the debrief is configurableby only the first participant.
 15. The computer readable medium of claim14, wherein determining that determining that the debrief is to beprovided in association with the meeting is based on the plurality ofmeeting parameters.
 16. The computer readable medium of claim 14,wherein determining that the debrief is to be provided in associationwith the meeting is based on determining from participating in themeeting via the meeting platform that the meeting has concluded.
 17. Thecomputer readable medium of claim 14, wherein determining that thedebrief setting is activated and applicable to the meeting comprisesaccessing the device setting from a user profile associated with thefirst participant and stored in a data store.
 18. The computer readablemedium of claim 14, wherein electronically transmitting the requestcomprises transmitting the request to the first participant via atext-based message over a telecommunications network.
 19. The computerreadable medium of claim 14, wherein the request comprises a link foraccessing an application through which the debrief is recorded.
 20. Thecomputer readable medium of claim 14, further comprising transcribingthe debrief for presentation to the first participant.
 21. The computerreadable medium of claim 14, further comprising evaluating content ofthe debrief to generate a task in association with the meeting.
 22. Acomputer system, comprising: a memory storing instructions; and aprocessor for executing the instructions to perform the steps ofelectronically connecting to a meeting platform based on a plurality ofmeeting parameters parsed from a meeting invite associated with ameeting having a plurality of participants, determining that a debriefis to be provided in association with the meeting, and for a first ofthe plurality of participants, determining that a debrief settingassociated with the first participant is activated and applicable to themeeting, electronically transmitting a request to the first participantfor providing a debrief associated with the meeting, in response to therequest, receiving the debrief associated with the meeting, andassociating the debrief with metadata captured for the meeting, whereinaccess to the debrief is configurable by only the first participant.